Girl, 10, Donates Rock Art Funds to Charity

TIVERTON, R.I. (WPRI) – A local 5th grader is proving that you are never to young to make a difference, especially in times when so many are in need.

When she’s not busy with school work or dancing Emma Larson is finding new creative ways to help others.

“Even though she’s 10 years-old she can give back to the community as well and she can use her talents to help somebody else that is in need. I think that’s important for her to understand on her level that she can be a support,” says Emma’s mother, Colleen Larson.

Her inspiration coming after a recent visit to the food pantry at the Saint Barnabas Church in Portsmouth.

“We went there with a whole bunch of bags of food just to drop to help the food pantry and it just so happen to be at the end of the day and they shared they had just fed 91 families and they were pretty wiped out.”

The experience left Emma wanting to do more.

She said, “We saw that there were families in need so I decided to paint rocks to raise money for them.”

After quickly reaching her goal of donating $500 in gift cards to grocery stores, at the church’s request, Emma set her heights higher.

“Her new goal that she had shared last week was that she wanted to try and raise a thousand dollars and just continue to give back and buy more gift cards that will in turn help families in need,” said her mother.

The project is not only helping put food on the table, but creating memories to last a lifetime.

“It’s actually been a nice mother, daughter thing to do. We sit down together and we are painting. I find it’s a good stress relief for me and she’s getting really creative. Now, we look at rocks in a whole new way. We went hiking last week and she saw rocks and she’s like “look mom this is going to be a great lady bug,” said Colleen.

The project is a labor of love for Emma and her mom. They have already painted nearly 100 rocks.